The Keeper: Awakening

by OL Ramos

  Chapter 10

  The rest of that night doesn’t seem real. It’s almost as if I’m not in control of my body, I’m just watching myself go through the motions. It’s all very…strange, but not in a bad way. It feels like something out of a movie.

  I’m supposed to spend the night with Michael for my own protection. I decide I won’t just let this time go to waste, so we start talking about his interests. Thankfully “maintaining the balance” isn’t his primary hobby. When I get to know him better, I finally get through his tough guy exterior.

  And speaking about something out of a movie, I learn that he doesn’t like dramas; he says that life is sad enough as it is, so he prefers comedies. That’s a huge surprise for me. I took him for an action junkie, I guess.

  “So, what kind of movies do you like?” Michael asks as he takes a sip of soda. “You’ve been asking me about my favorites all this time, it’s only fair that you share some of your favorites.”

  “I like a little of everything,” I say with a small giggle. “I just really can’t stand those artsy movies that take themselves way too seriously. You know, the ones where they try to make it seem like the idea behind the central plot is going to blow your mind away or whatever? I always look at these things and can never understand why they get the credit that they do. I guess I’m in the minority though, I mean, obviously I have to be. Those kinds of movies tend to make billions of dollars and reap in the rewards.”

  “No, I think I know the kind you mean,” Michael says, still smiling warmly at me. His eyes are much different than Vincent’s. They hold a bright…innocence to them. Despite all the horrors and pain that Michael must have had to endure, he hasn’t let life bring him down. I really admire that about him. I return his smile as I stare at his handsome face. Although Michael and Vincent have been friends for such a long time, the two of them couldn’t be any more different. I am refreshed to see that Michael isn’t always gloom and doom, as Vincent had accused him of earlier. I guess Michael just really takes his role as a protector of the natural order very seriously. He’s a classic workaholic. I’m not exactly thrilled about the idea, but with the right coercion, I could change him into being more into me, and less about the trees.

  A selfish thought I suppose, but a girl can dream.

  “So, is it just movies you like? I mean, other than saving the world occasionally, of course,” I ask playfully as I put my head on his shoulder.

  “No, there are a lot of other things I like to do,” Michael says as he grips my shoulder tightly. His warm body’s temperature courses through my own. “I really like to read, but then again, that comes with the job description. I used to be really into sports, but I couldn’t keep up with it anymore.”

  “Because of your job?”

  “No, not exactly,” he says with a nervous laugh. His cheeks blush. “I just got really into it. As a werewolf, you could say we have to be really careful with our anger. It could cause us to phase into a wolf form accidentally. So you know…the umpire would make a call I didn’t agree with, and well, the situation would get really hairy.”

  “Ooh, terrible pun!” I say with a loud laugh. “So you would totally wolf out over a baseball game?”

  Michael laughs at the silliness of it as he moves my hair away from my face gently.

  “Yeah,” he replies. “It wasn’t just baseball though. It was football, basketball, soccer, sometimes hockey. I wasn’t really big into hockey, but football, basketball and baseball? Yeah, those were huge problems for me. I had to stop watching it altogether. I would phase randomly into a wolf form and tear up my house.”

  “You can’t control your phasing or whatever?”

  “Now I can, and I bet I could watch sports again,” he answers as he touches his head to mine. “To be fair, I didn’t know that could happen. No one ever told me. And it’s not like Vincenzo had that knowledge, or would have reason to tell me ‘don’t watch sports, you’ll throw a fit and turn into a wolf.’ It was just a funny part of my life, I guess. It’s fine though, sports suck now anyway. They’re not what they used to be and I’m sure Vincenzo will agree with me on that.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to you calling him that,” I admit with a short laugh. “It sounds so…old. Or Italian. Which is odd because neither of you have any accent in your voice. And I know that you’re both really ancient, but I still see two twenty-somethings when I look at the both of you.”

  “Yes, well,” Michael replies slowly. “I’ve only ever known him as Vincenzo. We lived in a very different lifestyle back then. Now, everyone can track you. You have satellites that can tell where you are at any precise moment. Computers and social security numbers, driver’s licenses. Back in my original time, we didn’t have any of that. So, when people became suspicious of why I still looked so young, I would just move. I imagine Vincenzo had it even easier back in his original time. Not to mention, people died a lot younger back then, so few people would recognize or even remember him.”

  “And now? How do you avoid detection now? Especially with all those technologies you mentioned?”

  “There are a lot of humans that are involved in the super community,” he explains as he reaches for his cup again and takes a sip. “Vincenzo’s network alone probably has several thousand humans working for him. Only he knows the vastness of his information network, but I know it’s obscenely huge. I don’t really have many people I can trust, as I can’t charm them. And unfortunately, most people don’t really care what you have to say after they hear you’re a werewolf. I’ve tried to make friends, but they don’t stick around if they find out my secret.”

  “I stuck around, didn’t I?” I ask with a flirtatious smile.

  “Yes, yes you did,” he smiles before kissing the top of my head gently. “I just had to become adept at using computers and hacking things myself. As a matter of fact, one day, Vincenzo and I got so drunk that we just made a ridiculous bet to see who could hack into the Pentagon’s black files the fastest. I won that contest, something I was pretty proud of. He was a real sore loser about that, now that I think about it.”

  “That sounds like the beginning to a joke,” I chuckle as I think aloud. “So a vampire and a werewolf get drunk and...”

  “Yes, it does,” he shares in my laughter. “We don’t have a lot of downtime, so when we do, we try to have fun. Vincenzo has been trying to take down the Coronam civilly for centuries and I’m always finding supers that aren’t playing nice and dealing with them.”

  “You kill them, Michael?”

  Michael exhales and cracks his neck. The subject being brought up made him obviously uncomfortable.

  “Sometimes,” he answers as he adjusts himself in his seat. “Sometimes they can be reasoned with. But sometimes the things I deal with just aren’t alive; I have to send them over to the other side.”

  “What do you mean? Like ghosts?”

  “Yes, like ghosts,” Michael says softly. “Sometimes, when people die, they don’t know that they’re dead. They hang around their loved ones and friends. They try to act like life is normal, but soon, they discover that no one is responding to them. This almost always results in them trying to touch living humans. A ghost’s touch is not a pleasant experience to share. Most humans just kind of jump in their seats or back away. This angers the ghost and eventually they try to make themselves heard and noticed. They start moving things, making things fall over, that sort of thing. That usually just scares the humans more. The ghost’s frustration turns to anger and resentment…and you get the picture. But there are so many different kinds of spirits that just that particular category of super alone would take days to explain.”

  I nestle my head deeper into Michael’s chest, trying to find a nice, warm spot. Resting on him is like lying on a heating pad. Feels really great, actually.

  “So, is it ever dangerous to you?” I ask curiously. “I’d hate to think you could get hurt, but then you and Vincent pretty much claimed to be t
he most powerful duo on the planet. Is it true that silver is lethal to you? And what is phasing like? I want to know all there is to know about you, Michael.”

  Michael moves his head so that he can see my face. He smiles warmly as his eyes move back and forth between my eyes and lips. I want him to kiss me so badly…then he leans in and kisses my forehead.

  A letdown, to say the least.

  “I want you to know everything about me,” Michael says with a gentle tone in his voice. “I want you to care about me, the real me. I want your feelings for me to be genuine, not because of the pheromones you exude because of being a keeper. I want to know everything about you. Truthfully, because of this current mission, I had to watch you for a while. I don’t want to alarm you; it was just a part of the job. And I saw your kindness at the school and at your workplace. You have a good heart. You’re a beautiful person.”

  “You were stalking me?” I ask lightheartedly as I hit his chest. “You should have introduced yourself sooner, then. We could have been doing this a lot earlier. You deprived me of this, and you owe me. You know that, right?”

  “Yes milady,” he says in what I assume to be an old accent. “I will have to just spend the rest of my days trying to make up for it.”

  “You’d better,” I warn him as I bite his chest. Turns out he is really ticklish. He squirms under me as I take delight in continuing to see where else he could be ticklish. I stop shortly afterward, wanting to hear more of his story. “So, talk to me some more. I want to hear your voice, feel it as it comes out from your chest. What is phasing like? What else can you do? And do you just turn into a wolf? You said wolf forms, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, so now I’m interesting, huh?” he asks with a soft tone as he begins to play with my hair. “Phasing is when I switch in and out of my wolf forms. I don’t need a full moon or anything, that’s just a myth. I can’t turn into any other animal, but I do have a lot of variations on the wolf form. I learned them over time. Phasing was painful and lengthy at first, but now I can jump in and out of wolf form in less than a second, and the pain comes and goes so fast, I really don’t feel it. I can phase into a regular-sized wolf that has increased strength. I like that form just for fun. I can run around and I make a game of finding other wolf packs.”

  “That’s cute and sad at the same time,” I say with a half smile. “Are you a lonely little puppy that needs a home? I can keep you company, you know.”

  I look at him and blink my eyes as I try my best to flirt. I’m not really good at it yet, but I’m getting there. Michael just smiles, chuckles a bit and continues talking.

  “I also have my normal werewolf form, which is that of a very large, black wolf.”

  “How big are we talking about here?”

  “I didn’t know you wanted specifics,” Michael says as he scratches his head and laughs again. “That was the first form I ever learned, and in that form I’m just a little taller than your average SUV, and a couple feet longer than it.”

  “Whoa, that’s not large, that’s huge!” I exclaim incredulously. “You’ve got to show me this stuff! This would be so cool, and it’s way better than you stabbing yourself and showing me how fast you can heal. That’s just not romantic at all.”

  I laugh and poke Michael in his side to get a rise out of him. He looks at me and again stares at my lips. I can tell he is fighting temptation. I want him to kiss me so bad, but I have to respect his wishes. Not to mention I want to know how much of an effect does my being a keeper have to do with the attraction I’m feeling towards him?

  “I also have a hybrid form,” Michael continues as if he’s trying to distract himself from giving in. “I stand on two legs like a human, but I’m basically a wolf. I’m about nine feet tall there, probably weigh about two or three tons…most of my body is muscle, it has to be. If it weren’t, my body wouldn’t be able to sustain the transformations. So I tend to be very heavy. Even now in my human form I weigh three hundred and eight pounds.”

  “Geez, I knew you were buff, but that’s a crazy amount of weight,” I opine as I look at Michael’s body closer. “You’re tall and all, but I didn’t think you weighed that much. Then again, muscle does weigh more than fat.”

  “Would you prefer me to have a beer belly instead?” he asks jokingly as he taps his stomach.

  “Nah, I think we should keep you just the way you are,” I reply with my eyes closed. “How tall are you, anyway?”

  “I’m about six-seven or so, closer to six-eight”,” he says as he stretches. “That’s one of the major problems of being a werewolf, I suppose. You’d be surprised at how many men pick fights with me just to impress their friends. Buying a car is a hassle; none of them fit me comfortably. And let’s not even talk about my clothes. I have a real hard time finding things that fit, and I’m buying them on a constant basis.”

  “I didn’t take you for the fashion type”

  “I’m not, it’s my phasing,” he corrects, the subject being something of obvious frustration for him. “Every time I phase, I destroy my clothing. It’s not like I turn green and only my pants stay strapped on. I need new shoes, new watches, everything. I don’t even wear jewelry anymore.”

  My eyes widen at the idea. “So after you phase back to a human, you’re naked huh?” I try to flirt again. “That’s pretty interesting. I’ll have to keep that in mind. So, is your hybrid form your favorite one?”

  “Each of the forms has their purpose,” he says. He seems oblivious to my advances. “I use the hybrid the most because it’s the most useful. I can run and climb and fight very well, if need be. I use my large wolf form mainly for running and covering ground, it’s the fastest form I have. And if I’m really in trouble…there’s my war form.”

  “Your war form? What’s that?”

  “It’s not something I do often,” Michael says, the melancholy hanging heavy on his voice. “It sort of sprang up from necessity one night, while in battle with a nest of vampires. I was being overwhelmed by their sheer numbers…and next thing I knew, I was going into a further, bulkier and much more powerful version of the hybrid form. For many reasons, I don’t use it very much. It’s a really massive form, so I’m slower. I wouldn’t say I’m sluggish in the normal sense, I suppose, but it’s definitely my slowest form. I think the war form just came up because of necessity. There were too many vampires; I probably wouldn’t have made it without my war form.”

  “How many vampires were there?” I ask, sitting up. I’m as eager as a small child at this point. The whole story sounds just so amazing. “How big are you in that form? That must really be something.”

  Michael’s face looks puzzled as he studies my expression. I suppose he finds it odd that I’m getting so excited about something like this. But all he does is smile as he continues his tale.

  “I was naïve and ill informed,” he admits. “It was a nest of vampires that were breaking the Coronam rules. They were starting to make the townspeople very suspicious. It was near the outskirts of Helena, Montana. You see, the Coronam govern the vampires, and to keep up the secret of their existence and the existence of all supers, they live by a code of conduct known as the ‘veil’. The veil has hundreds of rules and laws to govern vampire society. As a matter of fact, the veil instructs all vampires to feed from blood banks or willing victims whenever possible. If that’s impossible, you must charm the victim to forget the whole thing happened. This particular nest however, was killing dozens of people. Not wanting to bother Vincenzo for help as he was busy at the time, I did my own research. I estimated about forty or so vampires in that nest, but I was wrong. There were actually two nests that had merged into one.”

  He exhales and closes his eyes as he remembers the painful experience. “Vincenzo was overseas,” he continues. “And I felt I could handle it. Judging by the amount of people that were being murdered, I could only guess that there were about forty or fifty vampires there. The attacks were being blamed on animal attacks, and they were ready to hun
t out all the wolves and bears in that area. It wasn’t the animals’ fault; I had to act. But, like I said, I thought it was only one nest of vampires. It turned out that a second nest, from Seattle, had come to join them for whatever reason. Perhaps the two nest leaders were friends, or maybe they had plans to go against the Coronam. Whatever the case was, when I went in there, I was in a hurry to stop the attacks before more people got injured. Had I allowed the humans to scour the forest for bears and wolves, the vampires would have slaughtered them. I had no choice, so I threw myself into my hybrid form and began destroying vampires.”

  Michael’s eyes stare off into the distance. This memory is definitely a traumatic one for him. With all his strength, Michael did not seem to like combat at all. He seems to actually have a serious distaste for it.

  “After I killed what seemed like dozens, I noticed their numbers were only increasing,” Michael says, his voice showing disbelief. “Worst of all, there was one vampire among them who was extremely ancient. He boasted to me as I was tiring in my struggle about having lived over six hundred years. He spoke to me about how many werewolves he’d killed, and that he’d savored every one of them, for werewolf blood was a delicacy…I don’t know what happened, but as I got clawed in the back of the neck by one of them, I fell to my knees. I thought I was going to die. I refused to die at the hands of this villain. I had to stop him before more people got hurt. And then, I phased into my war form. I grew to about thirteen or fourteen feet in height, and I was at least eight or nine feet wide. I still can’t even begin to imagine how much I weigh while in that form. But that form saved my life, and stopped the threat in Helena…I destroyed the entire nest. By the end of it all, I had slain ninety-six vampires that day.”

  “Michael that’s incredible,” I say as I hug him. He doesn’t move or make a sound. He seems to be lost in his memory. “I know you said it’s bulky, but if you’re so big, you’re like, indestructible, right? Why not just use that form all the time?”

  Michael shakes his head quickly as if waking himself from a stupor.

  “Like I said, the form is the slowest form I have,” he explains calmly. “It’s also extremely big, it makes me a bigger target. In that forest, during my fight with those vampires, I was knocking trees over left and right. Really old trees too. It’s a very destructive form, and I’m a pacifist by nature. I try to avoid combat unless it’s absolutely necessary. Thankfully, even though I become a huge and slower-moving target, I’m not sluggish by any means. In that form, my hide becomes much stronger. I don’t know if indestructible is the word, not yet. I can say I haven’t been hurt while in my war form every time I’ve resorted to using it. It’s almost as if my skin becomes impervious to damage. Even the six-hundred-year-old vampire couldn’t scratch me. I suppose I don’t use it simply because I don’t need to use it. My hybrid form is usually more than enough.”

  “Because they didn’t have any silver?” I ask as I return back to my seat and hang on his every word.

  “Silver doesn’t hurt werewolves,” Michael clarifies, “The only thing that can hurt me is other supers. Just like Vincenzo has to lower his healing ability to get drunk, I would consciously have to lower my healing ability to get injured by a knife wound or a bullet.”

  “It seems as if you really detest fighting, don’t you?”

  “As I said, I’m a pacifist by nature,” Michael states softly as he turns to face me. “I never want to hurt anything. But…being a werewolf has a lot of drawbacks. I have to control my emotions, especially powerful ones. Like anger, or love…or lust…”

  He turns away from me instantly as he regains control.

  “While I’m in my wolf phases,” Michael continues, “I can still think normally, as I do now. But the battle hunger, the blood lust, it calls to my instincts. It could turn me into a monster, the very thing I fight against. That’s why there are still some rogue werewolves out there. In time, they will have to account for what they’ve done as well, however. If not by my hand, by someone else’s. I believe in karma.”

  He turns back to face me with a smile. I can tell he’s trying really hard to hide his regrets from me. If I only had the words to tell him he didn’t have to hide anything from me…but I don’t know what to say.

  “So, you’ve told me about your father,” I say, trying my best to steer the conversation in a different direction. “He sounded like he was a great man and a great father. You never told me about your mother, though. Are you fine with telling me a little about her?”

  “Um, sure,” Michael says with a quizzical tilt of his head. “There’s not really much to tell, actually. She was a member of the tribe as well. My father could sense this and, according to him, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. He made it his life’s goal to capture her heart. My mother didn’t even know she was a member of the tribe, she never knew anything about the world behind the curtain until she met my father. They were poor; my father refused to keep the inheritance of our family. Instead, he gave all of it to the downtrodden. Italy was a very tough place to live in the 1400s. There were many beggars and widows who had no choice but to beg or prostitute for a day’s bread…it was a very sad time in my life. And although my mother could have had an easier life had my father been a different sort of person, she never regretted his decision. At least, that’s what he told me.”

  “You never asked her yourself?”

  “I couldn’t,” Michael explains with cloudy eyes. “She died giving birth to me. It was the 1400s, and we were extremely poor. This sort of thing happened all the time; although the medicine was impressive given that it was such a long time ago, it was still pretty awful. My father was really destroyed by my mother’s death, that much I could tell even as a small child. He never remarried; I’d dare say he never even considered it as an option. But he was very good to me, and he never once regretted his decision to help people. My father was laughed at by his neighbors for giving away all his money. They claimed that had he kept it, my mother would have lived. But we both knew differently. As I said, the medicine back then just wasn’t what the medicine is now. And, I imagine, had my mother lived, my father would have never saved as many people as he did. Even though I wasn’t a werewolf at the time, my father still took me on his trips to restore balance. He made it a point for me to know all I could so that one day I would be ready. I just never imagined that day would come so suddenly, and so early in my life.”

  He takes another sip from his cup and swallows his soda slowly. He leans back on the sofa and looks up at the ceiling.

  “When a werewolf is chosen,” Michael begins to explain, breaking the silence, “they receive all of the knowledge, power, and experience of their werewolf ancestors. The ones in the same bloodline; not all werewolves ever, of course. So, obviously, newer werewolves are almost like upgrades to the direct werewolf that came before him or her. My father had taken in a lot of information when he became a werewolf, and he knew he would have me and that I would turn out to be a werewolf someday. One of our ancestors was a psychic, at least that’s what we concluded. And I get inklings and bad feelings over certain decisions sometimes; it’s just not clear. When I get that feeling, it could mean stay away or it could be trying to tell me that’s exactly what I needed. You would think after five hundred years I would have mastered that by now…but no, not yet.”

  “No inkling or feeling about me?” I ask as sweet and innocently as I can.

  “An inkling about you?” He asks as he smiles mischievously at me. “As a matter of fact, I do. I just know that no matter what, you’re going to bring me a lot of trouble.”

  I smile at him and he pulls the hair away from my face.

  “There’s good trouble, and there’s bad trouble,” I clarify. “Good trouble could be kind of fun. I might trouble you to buy me roses or take me out to a nice movie, or read me one of your favorite books.”

  “All of which I would do gladly,” Michael says as he turns to me and begins to move slowly clo
ser to my cheek, kissing it. He stays there, hesitating to continue. I’m frozen as well. While I do want him to finally kiss me, I don’t know if now is the right time.

  “Knock, knock,” I hear Vincent’s voice calling to me from outside my front door. “Is anyone home?”

  “What excellent timing,” I say loudly in frustration. “Come on in, Vincent, the door is open.”

  Vincent walks in proudly and sits down on the arm of my sofa. He has a white plastic bag in one hand, and a small notebook in the other. He hands the plastic bag to Michael and looks at me seductively.

  “This one didn’t bore you to sleep?” he asks smugly. “I’m surprised, Michael. You did good keeping this young little thing awake. You must be more interesting that I thought you to be. I’d hoped you would be asleep, Izzy. But regardless, I brought you a sandwich just in case. Michael, can you give her the smallest one in there?”

  “That entire bag is full of sandwiches?” I ask as I notice the brand name on the plastic bag. “You went to that sub place and got all of that? What for?”

  “One of the other disadvantages of being a werewolf,” Michael says as he hands me a sub and begins unwrapping his. “I eat. A lot.”

  “He’s not kidding,” Vincent points out. “And often, too. It could be said that Michael is keeping many farms afloat in this rough economy.”

  Michael smirks and shakes his head at Vincent mockingly before taking another bite from his sandwich.

  “We have some serious things to talk about, though, wolf boy,” Vincent says with a serious expression. “Remember the ring? They’re not going to sacrifice her; they’re going to ‘purify’ her. As if a virgin can get any purer.”

  “I’m sorry, but what?” I ask as I unwrap my own sub. “What do you mean by purify?”

  “I found out that the Coronam is, in fact, behind this,” Vincent continues as he looks at Michael. “That’s not even the worst part. Ready for the worst part?” Vincent stops talking and looks at both me and Michael as if he wants us to try to guess.

  “Yes Vincenzo, can you please tell us now?” Michael asks with anxiety dominating his voice. “Or are we going to have to guess which one out of a million things it could be?”

  “Oh no, my friend,” Vincent retorts immediately. “This is a giant helping of suck salad. It turns out that this is the Coronam’s doing because they do want to turn Izzy into a ‘baby factory,’ as she so innocently put it. But worse than that, something I didn’t even know about, this is going to be their second attempt at making a keeper that can mate more than once.”

  “What?!” Michael says as he stands up. “That’s outrageous! So they are trying to create an army after all.”

  “It would seem that only one vampire elder on the council has a keeper now,” Vincent explains, gesturing with his hands to emphasize his point. “The rest of the council is nervous about this and they all want a keeper now. This is some serious stuff. Now do ya see why I say all hell breaks loose when a keeper is born?”

  Vincent looks at me sarcastically as his playful tone does little to ease Michael’s concern. He switches his attention to Michael and crosses his arms in front of him. His expression turns to disappointment.

  “No, no,” Vincent begins. “None of that. We shall have no more brooding. We already talked about this. We have a plan; we’re sticking with the plan. So, stop your moping, and I’m not kidding.”

  “This changes a couple of things,” Michael says as he wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Since the Coronam is definitely behind it, it’s almost a guarantee there will be vampires watching the ritual. I haven’t smelled any of them. That’s not a surprise; the witches are probably masking their presence. But now, more than ever, we have to know the area in which they plan to do the ritual. We’re going to be going up against thirteen angry witches. On top of that, we have an unknown amount of vampires overseeing the ritual in case any problems arise. I’m sure those vampires would consider us a problem.”

  “No doubt, my lupine friend,” Vincent says as he heads to my kitchen. “Take the notebook I left on the arm of the sofa. It has everything you usually ask me for and then some. Will you be going for a stroll?”

  “I have to,” Michael replies with a sense of urgency to his voice I haven’t heard before. “Did you charm everyone possibly linked to Liz?”

  “I did you one better,” I hear Vincent call out from inside the kitchen. “I charmed the entire town to stay home for the next few days. After of course making sure there was enough food for them to live on.”

  “I owe you one,” Michael says as he stands up and walks to me. He grabs my upper arm and looks at me with sincere remorse on his face. “I’m sorry, but I really have to check out the lay of the land. I can’t leave anything to chance.”

  Michael leans over and kisses me on the cheek before rushing towards the door, notebook in hand.

  “Thanks again Vincenzo,” he says quickly. “And seriously, I owe you one.”

  “Yeah yeah,” Vincent says as he emerges from my kitchen with another bottle of wine. “You owe me about a million. Now do your wolf thing so we can get this going already. The ring is going to be real suspicious about what’s going on in town. I might have charmed the town to stay indoors for a while, but I did that as a worst-case scenario type of deal. We need these witches to get to doing their little voodoo magic tonight, if possible. Otherwise, they’ll catch wise as to why no one is walking around and all the businesses are closed; they’ll split town.”

  “Indeed,” Michael agrees in a hurried frenzy. “Liz, try to get some sleep.”

  Michael walks out the door and lets it close behind him. Everything happens so fast, I’m not even able to say a word, much less a farewell. Vincent turns his attention to me and eyes me seductively.

  “So, did I interrupt anything?” he asks me with a smile before sipping some wine from the bottle. The bastard, he knew what was going on. “It seemed like things were getting hot and heavy there for a second.”

  “You’re a real jerk, you know that?”

  “Hey now,” Vincent says as he makes his way to the sofa with me. “I’m just as much of a romantic as Michael is. Besides, I know how he works. When I learned all of that, I knew he would have an obsessive need to scout the area. We’re really pressed for time here…I’m not as bad as you think I am, you know?”

  “You’re not?” I ask in pure shock. “How do you figure that?”

  “Michael’s right,” he answers. “About wanting to make sure the love or lust you feel for one another is real. You see, according to the rules, you being a keeper, I’m supposed to be irresistibly attracted to you. So much so that I wouldn’t be able to help myself. Not to insult you or anything, but I’m way too old to feel that level of need, for anything really. You both should cool off and evaluate your decisions when things quiet down. It really might just be your crazy keeper pheromones at work. Although I must admit, you really have to admire Michael’s willpower. With his supreme senses and primal nature, I really thought I’d be coming home to Izzy 2.0.”

  “Izzy 2.0?” I ask, eyebrows raised. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about an Izzy who has finally known the passions of the flesh,” Vincent says arrogantly before taking a sip of his wine. “But you still being you gives me a chance to…taste the forbidden fruit, if you will.”

  He smiles at me. He really is gorgeous. I slap him anyway.

  “You know, you really have to stop doing that,” he says as he takes another sip. “I’m not the guy you and Michael think I am. Honestly.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No, really,” Vincent says sincerely. I actually believe him. “I was in love once.”

  “Once in 1999, then again in 2000,” I joke playfully with him.

  But when I turn to face him, he isn’t laughing. He isn’t even smiling. His gaze is fixed far away, looking out one of my windows. I see his skin actually get goose bumps. He looks to his bottle with
sadness overwhelming his visage.

  “No, just the once,” he says sadly as he takes another sip. He plays around with the wine inside the bottle, causing it to swish inside. “In my entire lifetime, all sixteen hundred years of my life, I have only ever loved a person once. She was a human, nothing supernatural about her at all. But she was my world. She was both my sun and moon…”

  Vincent turns to me and licks his lips, rolling his tongue inside his cheek. His eyes begin to glisten as they start to water up.

  “She was taken from me,” he says as his tongue escapes his mouth. He bites down on it as a solitary tear rolls down from his right eye. “The Coronam figured I was making vampires look weak by consorting and honoring a human. They didn’t care about how I felt, they didn’t care that I wasn’t bothering anyone with the love she and I shared. All they cared about was that I was making the young vampire council look weak. So they made an example out of me. Back then, I wasn’t as powerful as I am now. And now, I can’t destroy the Coronam with my strength or powers; it would destroy all of vampire society.”

  Speechless, I merely watch Vincent as he tries to slow down his breathing. He wipes away the tear from his cheek and looks down at my hands. He grabs them and holds them carefully.

  “She was the reason I changed,” he admits quietly. “I was never a cold-blooded murderer, but accidents did happen back then while feeding. I never was mentored in my vampiric gifts; I accidentally killed some just by feeding. My vampire gifts also came with an increased temper and I was quick to anger. She was never afraid of me, though. She was strong enough for the both of us. She made me believe in myself, that I could change. I haven’t killed a human since her death, to honor her. Even if certain humans do deserve death…I’ve had a lifetime to learn humanity; it is more than capable of committing crueler deeds than any super. But there’s nothing I can do about any of that now.”

  His eyes can no longer hold back his tears. He is so caught up in his memory he doesn’t notice them, he just takes another drink from his bottle.

  “That’s why I want you and Michael to be absolutely sure about everything you do before you do it,” he explains candidly as he looks me in the eyes again. He swallows hard before continuing. “There’s an emptiness in my soul after the Coronam took her away from me. An emptiness that can never be filled. A thousand years have passed since her death, and I still miss her. She was my foundation and I would have died for her if the council had given me the option. They say that your heart aches from the loss of a love. I can’t say much about that. All I can say is that there definitely is pain there. It’s as if you aren’t whole anymore. It’s an emptiness I can’t describe, try as I might. I just don’t feel like myself. And even though so many centuries have passed, I still jump when I hear her name or think I see her. It’s a hell of a thing, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, not even my worst enemy. Michael has never been with a woman, and you, you’ve never been with a man. I don’t want either of you to get into something that could end up destroying either of you…especially now that the Coronam has been confirmed as being behind all of this.”

  “You’re afraid that the Coronam will once again separate a couple?” I ask, trying to show as much sympathy as I can.

  “I know they will,” Vincent says as he leans back against the corner of the sofa and finishes the rest of the bottle. “They want Michael dead because he’s a werewolf and my friend. And they want to kill me because they know I could overthrow the council if I wanted to. I don’t care at all about the council, I just want to see them burn. Install a good and true government that will take care of my people. They will use your love to get to whoever you care about, Izzy.”

  He wipes away his tears and coughs before looking at me and placing the bottle on the nearby coffee table.

  “Whether you end up falling in love with me or Michael,” he says jokingly with a smile, “please never tell this story to Michael. I don’t want him to be tarnished. He doesn’t need to have any preconceived notions about love and the pain it can give you. I’d rather he only know the joys of love.”

  “Is that why you saved Michael?”

  “Please promise me to never tell him?” Vincent asks me as his expression becomes more serious.

  “I promise,” I assert. “Is that why you want to destroy the Coronam? For her? Or because you really do want a better future for your people?”

  “I care about my people because I met her,” he answers softly. “So you could say it’s solely because of her. If I had never met her, I would have never truly cared about how the Coronam exploits younger, unknowing vampires. The way that things are going now, everything is going to go to the dogs. No pun intended. But the council is corrupt and eventually many werewolves will be tasked with killing the council, maybe even the entire vampire race. Even if the werewolves were just tasked to remove the council, that will cause complete anarchy in our society. Someone has to lead the council; the council itself needs to exist.”

  “So why don’t you lead it? You’re surely the most suitable candidate for the position, right?”

  “I don’t ever want to associate with the Coronam in any manner,” Vincent says as he tries his best to hide the hatred in his voice. “And you…you should get some sleep. You’ve been up all night and we don’t know when Michael will be back. And when he comes back, we have to move on with our plan.”

  I nod my head slowly as I try to hide the pity I’m feeling for Vincent. I make myself comfortable in the other corner of the sofa. I notice Vincent isn’t asleep, he’s just laying there.

  “I don’t need to sleep,” Vincent explains as if he’s read my mind. “It’s just another one of those things I can do if I feel like doing it, like eating human food.”

  “Hey Vincent,” I ask softly as I nod my head in acknowledgment. “That woman, she sounds like she was incredible. What was her name?”

  “Her name was Isabella,” he says quietly before turning towards me. “But I always called her Izzy.”